Human heart follows the 'golden ratio' for beauty

A healthy human heart follows the same "golden ratio" for beauty as
the Parthenon in Athens, doctors have found.

The discovery also links the heart with Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and even George Clooney, the Hollywood star.

The so-called formula is a mathematical ratio found in natural and man-made structures thought to be of great beauty.

When the dimensions of flowers, trees, faces and buildings seen as the most beautiful were analysed they often contained the ratio 1:1.618.

The length of the columns in the Parthenon and the width between them correspond closely to the ratio. It also applies to dimensions of the western face of Notre Dame cathedral which is thought to have been designed with the formula in mind.

The beauty of the human face can also be calculated by comparing the distance between the mouth and the nose and the distance between the eyes and the chin, some believe.

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Those whose features fit most closely with the ratio, including George Clooney, are considered more attractive to others.

Other examples in nature include the humble cauliflower.

Prof Hanno Ulmer, from Innsbruck Medical University in Austria, said that healthy people also “exhibit the harmonious golden ratio”.

To carry out the study his team took blood pressure readings from more than 160,000 people.

They found that those with a ratio of 1.6180 between their systolic (maximum) and diastolic (minimum) blood pressure counts were less likely to have a fatal heart attack.

Participants in the study who suffered fatal heart attacks had a higher ratio, of 1.7459, the researchers found.

“Although this finding is not likely to be of practical relevance for individual clinicians, at a population level this may be an important phenomenon and should be investigated in other cohorts,” the authors say in their study, reported in the British Medical Journal.